If you need to play a time traveling game, go play Braid
When you see a game from a developer who has no proven track record, you can feel a bit apprehensive in playing their game. In most cases this is a false feeling and instead the game is brilliant (see Spelunky). However in Darkest of Days that feeling is right on the money.
Darkest of Days pits you as time traveling trooper, sent back in time to fix mistakes made in the time stream. You go back to various periods, most notably WW1 and the American Civil War to save people who weren’t supposed to be involved in the wars and to discover who is tweaking the past. Although the general idea is good, the execution is less so.
First of all I should say the game isn’t completely terrible. Its a passable first person shooter, feeling like it was made pre-COD 4, with a few clever ideas. First of all, the different time periods lead to masses of weapons. Also, the plot is a good idea but unfortunately is let down by some major holes (for example, if you were brought forward in time and told to fire a futuristic gun you’d probably have some questions). It does have some quite funny characters such as Dexter, you cowboy hat wearing pizza loving squad mate. The biggest flaw in regards to the story is the fact the last few levels are really, really good fun but all the levels before them feel increasingly generic.
As for serious problems, well the game has many. For a start, the game is ugly. It has a look that is a lot worse than even the Source engine on its release back in 2004. The textures all look really low resolution and the models lack in detail. Worse they miss out animations for many things, leading both ally and enemy to glide along or bu out at certain points. The maps not only look terrible but also play badly. There are more invisible walls in this game than in WaW and they can be really fustrtraing. The AI is also appalling. It appears to use a design from the very early 3D games, with AI only activating once they reach certain areas. Additionally the AI uses the old trick of constantly respawning enemies in certain areas, making your kills worthless. The game also struggles with some of its mechanics such as the eneimes in blue auras (ones you can’t kill but AI friendlies will it seem hunt after) and the active reload system it nicked from Gears of War. Finally, the audio design is rather lacking – most of the gun sounds are flat and the voice acting is terrible.
The thing to remember with all this is that Darkest of Days is the first game from the developers, but that’s no excuse for the state this game is in. The entire game stinks of a rushed product and unfortunately wastes the clever premise. To make it clear – This Is A Bad Game. If you need to play a time traveling game, go play Braid
I give Darkest of Days 35%
